Yet another Banksy cover and the number of records/CDs with Warhol art on the cover increases

I thought I had gotten up to date on records and CDs that bear Banksy images, but last week I saw a promo CDR for Dirty Funker’s “Future” EP that I had not seen before. Of course it was listed in Discogs, so I don’t know how I missed it. Anyway, a copy was for sale on eBay and I managed to grab it!

Apparently, according to the copy of the newsletter that accompanied the CD, only 50 were produced, making it one of the rarest Banksy covers, so I’m glad to have found a copy.

Incidentlally, a Finnish journalist had seen the Banksy exhibition at Konserthuset via the Internet who is currently writing a book on Culture Jamming and wants to include pictures of Banksy’s/DangerMouse’s Paris Hilton spoof album as an example of hi-jinx related to the music industry and celebrities in general. he asked me for pictures which I duly sent.

What with this week seeing the release of Klaus Voormann’s 60th and Sir Peter Blake’s 20th piece of record cover art, I am amazed by the diligence of collectors of Andy Warhol’s record cover art in finding more covers that use his images. Thanks to http://www.warholcovers.com I can keep my list up to speed. The most recent covers to come to light are:

The following year Sonic Youth released a covers album that included a reworking of Madonna’s “Into the Groove(y) / Burnin’ Up” and this was released as a single in both 12″ and 7″ formats with a cover using Warhol’s picture of Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding.

The re-issue trend continues with a revamped Velvet Underground live album “The Velvet Underground Live at the Gymnasium. Originally recorded on 30th April 1967 at New York’s Gymnasium, this recording is purportedly the only live recording before John Cale left The Velvets and includes a track “I’m Not A Young Man Anymore” that is not available anywhere else. The recording was first released in 2008 and was re-issued in 2011 with a cover purported to be by Warhol.

Last, but not least (at least at the time of writing), is a new release by a band called Literature entitled “Arab Spring” which uses Warhol’s “Flowers” image (incidentally my favourite Warhol image) on it cover. The album is a limited edition with 398 copies pressed on black vinyl, 98 copies pressed on white vinyl and 4 copies on grey vinyl (according to Discogs.) There is also a cassette with a different variation of the Flowers image released in only 25 copies.

I have no idea whether the use of Warhol’s art on these (and other) releases has been sanctioned. I suspect, however, given the continued popularity of Warhol’s art, that these covers will not be the last to use Warhol’s images. I guess I will have reason to return to this topic in the future.

2 thoughts on “Yet another Banksy cover and the number of records/CDs with Warhol art on the cover increases”

A very interesting & pleasant evolution, all these ‘new’ Warhol covers, but also debatable.
The Ciccone Youth single : in my opinion similar to, but not Warhol. The same newspaper headline was used, but not the same picture. Warhol and Keith Haring used a Polaroid of Madonna and Sean Penn taken by Keith Haring. They then made some flamboyant Warhol/Haring screenprints of it, different versions, and gave these prints as a wedding present to the newlyweds.
The picture in the Ciccone Youth cover is a Photo Agency picture of Madonna/Penn, and the final result and layout have little to do with the Warhol/Haring collaboration.
The Velvet Underground bootleg: The cover picture on this Gymnasium LP is a picture of Warhol, Nico and two other SuperStars by Billy Name, that has also been used on posters and different sizes of newspaper ads for Warhol’s movie Chelsey Girls. So it depends on ones point of view, if you consider every photograph ever taken by a Factory member (Nat Finkelstein, Billy Name, Stephen Shore, Gerard Malanga, Chris Makos…) as ‘Warhol’. Not sure about this one…
(By the way, not the only live concert with John Cale available, e.g. the 1966 Valleydale Ballroom gig has been bootlegged numerous times)